“I have lived through droughts. I understand what that's all about really well,” he said. “My main desire here was I didn't want the city of San Antonio telling me I couldn't irrigate during the summer.”

Here, was in the backyard of his River Road neighborhood home. It's a splendid patio oasis with minimal landscaping, a bubbling fountain and two 2,500 gallon rainwater cisterns.

Sibley would rather have Texas-sized those cisterns — “I wanted a huge swimming pool” — but you just can't imagine how difficult it is to hide enormous corrugated metal cisterns from well-intentioned, historic-district-OCD types.

So, he settled for a mere 5,000 gallons of rainwater.

This water flows through a filter and UV system and then out of his tap and into a glass. It crystallizes in his ice cube maker. It babbles and bubbles through fountains and drip irrigation, quenching front-yard fauna.

Sibley's noble aim is to use rainwater for everything but flushing and showering. He installed the system this spring — and can switch to SAWS as backup if the cisterns run as dry as our rivers.

So far, so good.

Yet, Sibley doesn't score any rebates or incentives from SAWS for his water-harvesting. In fact, SAWS has said a specific incentive for rainwater harvesting isn't effective.

SAWS will still sit down and calculate a custom rebate for people, accounting for cistern size, rooftop space (to collect runoff) and irrigation needs.

“And this is where it all starts to disappoint people,” said Karen Guz, SAWS' director of conservation.

It rarely adds up. Especially when lawns and sprinklers are involved.

“If they are running an irrigation system their tank will probably be dry, not full of water to the degree that they want in June, July and August,” she said. “They will be on potable water mostly in those key months, which are our biggest peak months.”

In terms of water saving, it's much better to get folks to ditch automatic irrigation systems, she said. Same thing when folks turn to xeriscaping, or at least to less-thirsty grass.

Peace agreed these are probably bigger water savers — and she's a huge fan of Guz's.

“I understand from their perspective where they are going to change sprinkler systems to drip irrigation because that's going to save a lot more water,” she said.

Still, she thought this pushback against rainwater harvesting was “strange.”

“Because at one point they were encouraging us to do it,” she said.

That program never materialized, but it would have involved artsy 50-gallon rain barrels.

Yes, it really can be that small.

Sibley, of course, has chosen to make it big, which may be why he dissed SAWS' rationale.

“They make their money selling water,” he said.

He pointed to the situation in Austin to make his case.

Austin Water Utility is considering a “drought fee” on ratepayers, in part, because it's losing money due to water conservation, the Austin American-Statesman has reported.

So, where to go?

Admittedly, Sibley's situation is unique. He's a “shale-ionaire” thanks to fracking on family land in South Texas.

“It's good karma,” he said of his rainwater harvesting and solar panels.

It's also expensive.

Good news, though, all you really need is a rain barrel to get started and maybe a few drought-tolerant plants. Every drop counts, right?

Plus, what better symbols of conservation? People can see a rain barrel, touch it, ask questions and understand it.

That just might merit a rebate — or even spark a rainwater revolution.